Interviews: Bare Rose Design

I want to thank you June and Tori for making time for MMORPG and our readers today. As one of the Second life communities most established clothing designers it is an honor to have this chance.

June when did you first discover Second life and what brought you here?

June Dion:

When Starwars galaxies went through the NGE changes, I started looking for a new social type game. I found Second Life after some look at what was out there, I was doing tailor in Starwars galaxies and they did not have many outfits, so I was amazed by what Second Life had to offer. XStreet had so many clothes that it about made me faint.

I didn’t think I was going to make my own clothing when I first started Second Life. I shopped alot, about 3000 linden in a day, and thought I should start making something before I became poor. So I starting making clothes, I have a premium account so Linden gave me 500 lindens weekly (300 now) and I use it for the upload fees. It was at this point I swore I wouldn’t use any more of my real world money.

Tori Heart:

If you’ve played Starwars galaxies, the tailor profession was fun but limiting because they only had so may patterns you could make.

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MMORPG.com:

Where are you based in real life?

June Dion:

Japan, Tokyo. I’m Japanese, so I wanted Tori here to help with the English translation, and she is our general manager, so she knows more about store then me sometimes.

MMORPG.com:

You have a wonderful collection; do you also design in RL?

June Dion:

No, I just know how to use the tools needed for design in Second Life, Photoshop and such, so starting out went smoothly.

Tori Heart:

June has had alot of real life companies that come to Second Life and ask her to design for them in Second Life.

MMORPG.com:

What sources give you inspiration for your designs?

June Dion:

It really depends on the outfits, sometime even things in like the kitchen give me inspiration, sometime it comes in the city, sometimes from songs, and sometimes I get a request from a customer.

Tori Heart:

She’s very diverse in her designs, anything from beautiful gowns, to casual, to Goth.

June Dion:

for example take the kitchen, when I see shiny bowl, I might scan it and make cyborg armor in Second Life. The bowl looks like the body part of a cyborg at the point inspiration. For casual clothing, I try to make what people in Tokyo streets are wearing nowadays. The Goth, wedding and fantasy lines come from various cultures sometimes, like the Japanese kimono.

Tori Heart:

it’s really neat to see the current trends in Japanese fashion through Junes creations.

MMORPG.com:

and for your Neko line? What are your inspirations there?

June Dion:

Neko, kitty? Basically I start with a punk look, and try to think of some of the story behind the outfits, like where she lives and what environments are around her

MMORPG.com:

Your Second Life main store is amazing, what can you tell us about your Second Life store and its layout?

Tori Heart:

The main store has several areas. When you Teleport into the store you are in the new releases area. June makes new clothes almost every day, and they are shown right there. After clothing is shown there for a time we move them to either the women’s or men’s sections. Women’s is to the west and men’s to the east side of the store. Each of the sections is labeled such as casual, Goth, Japanese, ect. In the main store we also have a dance stage in the front of the store so people can enjoy themselves. In the back of the store is our merchant mall, where we rent out our vendor spaces. We also have a book store and a art gallery too. All this is just on the main sim we have two others as well

June Dion:

People don’t see much of the second floors in many of the shops in Second Life, people can fly in Second Life so they like our open structure. As far as the book store, we have all of the major books in Second Life there except for porn.

MMORPG.com:

Beyond your main store, what other locations can our readers find your clothing?

Tori Heart:

June owns the black cat sim which is a unique shopping experience, we have smaller store there. a haute couture store, 2 clubs, and lastly a couples store where all the outfits match each other for male/female.

She also owns the White Wolf sim were we have a Japanese/Goth store. There are lots of items on those two sims as there is alot of entertainment things available there.

We have a branch at the space junky island, plus June made a coat for a contest at SpaceJunky Island, and was a winner there. Since The contest June has been in partnership with Spacejunky designing alot of their outfits.

MMORPG.com:

With an operation of this size I am sure you have an amazing staff, care talk about the fine people that make this possible?

June Dion:

Yes Tori is number one with me :) she helps me in all things in Second Life, and with the web blog for our new releases also. Tori also organizes our customer model group that does the modeling for our advertisements and boxes. Koko is manager of the book store and the contact for the magazines. Bagu helps with the mall area. Serenity is in charge of organizing our Furry community. Lashek is working on a web search system.

Each of our staff has an area of expertise, each one does a fantastic job and are super friendly. We have a staff of 35, and most of the people can speak another language, we support about 8 languages for customer service.

Tori Heart:

I’d like to add to that June has a really unique staff and all are wonderful, they make it easy for people to shop in a store of our size. She employs people from all over the world; it’s really a fun environment to work in. I started as a greeter and June was kind enough to let me do other things, its humbling and thank you for it too June.

MMORPG.com:

When someone approaches you for a job in Second Life what do you look for in a new employee?

June Dion:

Most of time for languages that they can speak, and if English is one of them. Oh and the big one is if they like our clothes.

Tori Heart:

Some of our best employees we’ve found them by them being in our stores and loving our clothes.

MMORPG.com:

Beyond your own line of clothing and accessories, what are some of your favorite designers?

June Dion:

Chaospire is very nice, theirs were the first Goth fantasy clothes I bought when I started Second Life, and Nomine, which is Goth too. For casual clothes I like Nyte and Day There are too many hair designers I like to list.

MMORPG.com:

What advice can you give to someone that wants to get started in clothing design?

Tori Heart:

I don’t get out of the Sim much nowadays so I don’t get to check out too many new designers. I do see allot of new designers while people watching in the store though.

My advice would be enjoy yourself, and keep making new designs, which can be the most difficult part.

Just keep trying to work as long as possible and in time good results will happen for you. Find friends to help you it’s easier with a team.

MMORPG.com:

This next one would be to both of you. There is so much to love about Second Life, but if you were to put your finger on one key thing what would be your favorite feature of Second Life?

June Dion:

There are few limitations in Second Life you can make almost anything you want.

Tori Heart:

I would say meeting such wonderful people from all over the world, Second Life gives you the opportunity to do that and you become friends with people like June from Japan, people from Australia, Europe, almost anywhere.

MMORPG.com:

I am honored that you took the time out of your busy lives for this

Tori Heart:

and thank you very much for opportunity you have such a great website.

David Greene / I love MMORPG’s, but I love RP even more. I started with AD&D in 1979, and between 1990 and 1994 I was a GM at GENCONs (one of many). I started my love of MMORPGs with the Beta of UO and have been online gaming every since.